Yes, of course, you are completely correct! I guess I just let my emotions cloud my thinking! I just feel sometimes having an out of touch Cabinet, led by many PMs across the last 14 years has led to a bigger divide between the “haves” & the “have nots” and whilst I agree 100% that those who can work, should work, there’s still many who genuinely cannot work living in dire circumstances. There’s still people on low incomes only just surviving and there are working people using food banks. This cannot be right or moral?
I'm not disagreeing at all. The divisions in the UK are wider than ever, and it is neither right nor moral that people should 'just survive' when they are working, or if they are unable to work. My point is not (and never has been) that those who are unable to work should so so, or that they should scrape by, but that we need to widen the range of those who pay tax - the 'economically active' as they are now called - so that those in need have more people supporting them, and their lives can be much better. As it is, those on PAYE and those who honestly complete tax returns support everyone else, whether the people being supported are able to contribute or not. That seemed to work in the days when one salary would keep a family and women could retire at 60, but it doesn't now, even though we all work longer and most families need two salaries to survive. Clearly things have changed, but we resist changes in society that would better align with the current economic situation. It's just not fair to expect a shrinking number of working people to support a growing group of the 'economically inactive'.
Taxation needs to be reorganised so that we all pay in, not just those in paid employment. If that happened, it may be possible to make exceptions based on fairness - for example, to take pensioners out of tax, or to build in tax holidays for those who want to have more spending money whilst bringing up children, or doing other things such as travelling or studying. There would be more money to spend on health, education and housing, and fewer people would be just surviving.
As it is, however, when people can opt out (which is not the same as being unable to work) and when wealth is untaxed, the burden falls on too small a number of people.